


Gossamer

by seitsemannen



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternative Universe - FBI, Angst, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Insomnia, Jaebum was trying to catch a thief not knowing they were lovers all along, Longing, Lovers to enemies to lovers, M/M, Questionable mental stability, Sexual Content, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, cops and robbers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 04:26:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16256648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seitsemannen/pseuds/seitsemannen
Summary: Jaebum would wake up in the middle of the night, hearing sirens wailing in the distance, expecting to turn around and find Mark lying there, beside him.Turns out that was just a memory, now.





	Gossamer

**Author's Note:**

> gossamer _\- noun_  
>  1\. a film of cobwebs floating in air in calm clear weather  
> 2\. something light, delicate or insubstantial
> 
> I was possessed while writing this. I didn’t know I could write something in this style but I’m so proud I did. This should be considered a song fic because its story is built on Pyhimys’ cover of [Sireenit](https://open.spotify.com/track/5F1RfHOisyYLFggwIwjnip?si=77et5nJvSmu7gLWNP0ynyQ) (= Sirens) (which I recommend you to check out if you speak Finnish or don't care what language you hear in songs).
> 
> Bingo Square: Cops and Robbers

Beaches were overrated – they were just piles of sediment, formed by water and wind along the shoreline, somewhere the waves tipped just on the side of gentle instead of destructive. And yet, people flocked to them, like ants to a can of spilled soda on the pavement, stuffing the streets nearby with parked cars and polluting the beach and the ocean with the trash they couldn’t be bothered to carry ten meters to a garbage can.

Jaebum hated beaches. But the Los Angeles FBI department he had worked for six years now had provided him an apartment to rent right next to the ocean, so every time he drove home from work he got stuck in the traffic to and from the beach. Some nights, just to avoid having to look at the beach as he sat in traffic, Jaebum stayed at the office long past working hours and only drove home when the streets were emptier and he couldn’t see the sea in the dark.

He hated being stuck with a desk job, but that was all they would give him after New York. It was his own fault.

  
  
  


_ Randy Wong. Andrew Chan. Holly Vuong. _

Jaebum’s mind was a phone book full of these useless names, names he had tied to that one elusive man, leads he had pursued for months only to have them take him to another dead end. He wasn’t even supposed to be thinking about them anymore. Jaebum was off the case, access to the files denied, but sometimes, through other cases that he was on the paperwork for, he would see flashes of names that he recognized. Jaebum had by instinct known he had been right to follow them then, he had just been unable to prove anything incriminating before everything went to hell.

Sometimes, when he walked down the halls of the FBI building to get another cup of coffee from the shitty machine they had on the third floor common room, he would overhear someone saying the name that haunted Jaebum more than any other.

_ Mark Tuan. _

They didn’t even know if that was his true identity, but that was the name that Jaebum had been able to tie to him in the four years he had been assigned to his case, and that was still the best they knew. Jaebum didn’t know if they had had any major advancements in the case after he had been taken off of it, but if they would have had a breakthrough, he would know about it, even if he was kept in the dark about everything else. Nobody would be able to keep it under wraps if they finally closed one of the biggest cases their department had.

Still, every time Jaebum heard that name, or  _ thought _ he heard that name, he was thrown back into the memories he knew he should try to forget. It was far too easy to get stuck in the past, reliving days and nights that had been happier.

Sometimes, when Jaebum woke up from another feverish dream in the middle of the night into the warm humidity of his room, it was like he was still there. Jaebum could almost smell him, the salt of his skin and the light tang of citrus in his hair. Rationally Jaebum knew it was just an illusion, the fragment of a dream that would fade when he came to his senses. But some nights, when the memory of the smell refused to fade despite him lying awake for many long minutes, Jaebum wondered if he had died in the night, or if he had fallen asleep the previous night in New York and never woken up.

Those nights he would lay awake in his bed for the rest of the night, staring at the roof, unseeing, until finally the mercy of his alarm clock going off at seven in the morning would force him back into what was here and now.

Jaebum glared at the beach, waves glittering in the early light of the sunrise as he drove to another day of meaningless work. Beaches reminded him of that afternoon over three years ago, when they had met, unaware of the impossible mess they were getting themselves into, of the misery that awaited down the line.

_ Mark, _ he had introduced himself as. He had insisted on Jaebum telling him his Korean name and refused to call him by “JB” as everyone else here in the US preferred.

“Isn’t it nicer to be called by your real name?” He had said, and there had been no way to argue with that. Who knew if Mark was even his real name, or if it had been another lie. It seemed that it was more likely that it was, than that it wouldn’t be.

The wind had been merciless that day, blowing sand into their eyes, but Mark had smiled at the sun, salt and sediment in his bleached hair, the perfect image of a surfer boy. Jaebum couldn’t recall how he had gotten roped into trying surfing that day, but he had hurt his back falling off of his board after riding his first wave. Although Jaebum had gotten a nasty twinge in his back, the sharp, giddy smile on Mark’s face had been irresistible, and when the blonde had suggested Jaebum try another time, shift his weight a bit later, Jaebum had held his tongue about his pain, and simply nodded, defying the waves again and again until he had made Mark proud, and surfing became their thing.

Jaebum hadn’t been to the beach even once after he had moved back to Los Angeles.

  
  
  


Jaebum was trapped inside the four walls of his office, sitting his hours at his cubicle. It had never been the career planned for him, not for years – he had been trained to be a field agent from the start, skilled in gathering intelligence, going undercover, assuming whatever roles needed for him to get what they needed to pin the bad guys down. He had been phenomenal at his job, delivering results like no other, until he had been handed the case of an unnamed diamond robber nicknamed “The Magpie” as it seemed like the thief could almost fly, performing rows of acrobatic tricks to get to his prize. Magpies, given the chance, stole shiny things. For the lack of a name, it was better than most aliases, and widely known. Then again, The Magpie’s reputation was widely known for the expensive, well-guarded jewelry he had managed to steal over the years without ever getting caught in the act.

Nobody had expected Jaebum to actually find him. He had been rising in the ranks too fast and needed to be put down, which was why he had been given a seemingly impossible task, intended to lose some of his shine by wasting years on a futile search. Jaebum was determined to prove them wrong, determined to catch the one others had been unable to find for years and to get his name among the greats in the FBI. And it was true, they had severely underestimated him, because Jaebum came closer to The Magpie than anyone else had in years. It was just in more ways than everyone, even he, had known.

In the end, he had been the one with so much to lose when he  _ had _ finally cornered his target. He just hadn’t understood it until that very moment in the halls of the unopened exhibition in the American Museum of Natural History, when he had turned on the lights to reveal the would-be thief of a rare blue diamond necklace. Jaebum had fought for months to get it displayed within the reach of The Magpie, creating the perfect opportunity that the bird who craved for shiny things could not resist.

It had been a moment of triumph just before it had turned incredibly sour, Jaebum recognizing the eyes of the man he had been going out with for the better part of two years, of the man Jaebum had intended to ask to marry him once the case he had been forced to be so secretive about would finally be closed. He had hated lying to Mark about his job, about the work he had to do, but clearly he hadn’t been the only one forcing distance between them by not being honest about who he was and what he did.

He swore he had seen the dreams and plans they had made crumble into dust in that long, terrible moment of shared recognition, the only sound the distant sirens and Jaebum’s supervisor blaring into his earpiece to  _ move, goddamnit JB, what the fuck are you doing, alpha team, get in there, go go go. _

In one split-second instant between action and inaction, Jaebum had known that his choice had already been made for him a long time ago, on that day on Venice Beach, when he had fallen in love with that blonde boy with a sharp-toothed smile so deeply he had learned to surf despite his initial dislike toward the sport.

“Go,” He had croaked, the syllable so broken it had barely been a puff of air. Those dark eyes, the almond-shape of which was far too familiar to Jaebum blinked a couple of times in bewilderment, or perhaps surprise. Jaebum wasn’t able to tell with how the lower half of his lover’s face was covered was covered with a commando mask, nor did he have the time to figure it out.

“Run,” Jaebum said a little stronger when the man still wasn’t moving, and he could hear the steps of reinforcements already closing in. The word seemed to snap the would-be thief out of his daze, and before Jaebum could blink, he had left the way he had come. The Magpie disappeared out of the sixth-floor window with half of Jaebum’s heart just as the first police officer got to where he had been standing just a fleeting moment ago.

It still didn’t feel real, even half a year later. It had felt even less real then, and more than anything, Jaebum had wished he had been wrong about what he saw, even after he had been chewed out by his supervisor and demoted, removed from the case that he had hoped to make his career, but instead broke it.  _ Still,  _ Jaebum hoped for nothing more than that he had been mistaken when he opened the door to their tiny Brooklyn apartment, wishing for his boyfriend of two and half years to be there to welcome him home and ask him about his day. He had been greeted by a cold, empty apartment, devoid of the warmth and light that Mark brought into his life.

Mark had not come back to get his things. They were all still exactly where he had left them that morning, no indication anywhere that he would not be planning to come back. Jaebum guessed that had been as big a surprise to the both of them. He knew Mark loved that bulky red hoodie he had always worn when he wanted to be comfortable, sometimes wearing nothing else beneath it, expanse of tan skin there for Jaebum to freely explore when the shorter man would sit into his lap, demanding all of his attention. Mark cherished that hoodie so much that Jaebum had joked that his boyfriend probably wanted to get buried in that ratty old thing, that attached he was to it. Jaebum didn’t think Mark would have left that hoodie behind, no matter what, if he had had any idea that he wouldn’t be coming back. Jaebum needed to believe that.

Jaebum had kept that hoodie. The other stuff he had after weeks finally packed into storage boxes and left in New York as he had been made to move back to Los Angeles. New York had been their first apartment together, Mark moving across the country with him without question when Jaebum’s assignment had been changed. Who knew what city Mark was in now. It wasn’t supposed to be any of Jaebum’s business anymore.

There were nights, when Jaebum woke up and he  _ swore  _ he could hear Mark’s voice although he couldn’t see him, nights when it felt  _ so real _ that Jaebum had to go out to the balcony, breathe the salty sea air and pretend he wasn’t looking for Mark’s figure in the people passing by on the street.

Somewhere in the distance, Jaebum thought he could hear sirens, but unlike Mark’s voice, it was likely they were actually real.

  
  
  


The difference between a person in love and a lunatic was gossamer.

Jaebum never got to go out on the field anymore, enough to drive him crazy in a good state of mind, and he wasn’t, not even months that steadily bled into what would soon be a year. So out he went, going right back into the wrong type of crowd he used to gather intelligence in, but this time without the justification of a case he was working on. There was no excuse when he woke up in the middle of the night, like he always did these days, and there was some stranger lying on the other side of the bed, trail of white powder lined up ready on the screen of a smartphone. Jaebum had  _ no business _ being on that when he wasn’t working on a case, an immunity lined up for the deeds he had to do, strict rules in place that he keep to the minimum, just enough to keep his cover. There were none now, and the laws that were supposed to bind all were so easily broken once one had gotten used to it, good intentions or not.

Jaebum took a handful of the pills the doctors prescribed for his sleeping problems and the next time he woke up to the sirens of a fire truck passing by, it was night again, and both the stranger and their illegal substances had disappeared.

Having slept all day, Jaebum knew he would be staying up all night, always in debt to the sleep he never seemed to get enough of at the right times. It was torture that sleep evaded him, because in his dreams they were still together and back in their tiny Brooklyn apartment, waking up to the sound of sirens in the middle of the night, red and blue flashing into their bedroom. Both awake, they would use the excuse to get lost in each other’s bodies, Mark climbing on top of him with agility that seemed too much for a person just woken up. His skin always appeared much paler in the lights of the moon and the neon signs just outside their apartment. Jaebum would suck bruises into that skin while Mark scraped sharp teeth down his throat, soft gasps on moist skin as they moved together languidly, not in a hurry anywhere.

They hadn’t known that the forever they whispered in promises into each other’s skin had been impossible from the start. They had been living on borrowed time, like a drawing made into the sand along the waterline, endless effort spent on something they had not realized would be washed away once the inevitable tide would rise.

He wondered if Mark still remembered those nights, if they haunted his dreams like they tormented Jaebum’s, or if Mark had been able to put him into the past easily, like they hadn’t been seriously talking about getting married, about whether or not they would want to get kids someday, about how many cats Jaebum would be allowed to adopt when they had an apartment that allowed pets.

They had been talking about two. Jaebum had five now, he kept taking in strays. His cats were the only thing that brought life into his streamlined studio apartment, but their love was not enough to even begin to fill the empty space Mark had left.

Jaebum kept drifting between sleep and reality, falling into the memories that made up his dreams, waking up and expecting to find the person next to him that hadn’t been there for so many nights already that Jaebum had lost count some time after three hundred. Sometimes, he wasn’t sure if he was really waking up, or if he was waking up in his dream. The difference was obvious soon enough, when he didn’t wake up in their shabby but homey apartment in Brooklyn, where the sounds of the street were too loud through the shitty insulation of their windows and the sheets smelled like a combination of them, sandalwood and sea salt and citrus. They had always intended to move back to Los Angeles once Jaebum’s job allowed it, but without Mark, the city and his apartment and everything felt wrong,  _ smelled _ wrong.

At this point Jaebum wasn’t sure anymore if his memories of Mark were accurate. It felt like he was making up more memories as he relived them in his dreams again and again, and he couldn’t tell what really had and hadn’t happened anymore. Sometimes, when Jaebum felt most lost, he started doubting if he hadn’t made it all up, if his years with Mark hadn’t been just a figment of his imagination. Those moments, he would desperately dig to the back of his closet, throwing clothes left and right in his frenzy, until he found that worn red hoodie in the very last corner, carefully folded. He would hug it to his chest, breathe in the last lingering scents of Mark and cry from the relief that it had been real, from the pain of what he had lost.

Love or lunacy, it wasn’t good for Jaebum.

  
  
  


A year, and it was the first time since that Jaebum had tried calling Mark’s number.

He had avoided it, fearing that hearing the sound of Mark’s voice would finally break him. Like, if they both acknowledged that they were ruined, over, it at last would be. But after a year of heartbreak and doctors and mandatory therapy sessions where he would sit and stare at the clock on the wall and not get a word out about what was really difficult, Jaebum wondered if it would be what he needed; to know it was over, without having the option of  _ maybe _ in the form of a phone number he had not dialed; a chance he had not yet exhausted.

_ We're sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again. _

Jaebum stared at his screen where the letters of Mark’s name were big and bold, leaving no doubt.

_ Not in service. _ A door that had been closed who knows how long ago. Mark had probably tossed his phone the minute he got out of the museum and disappeared out of Jaebum’s life, leaving a gaping hole in his chest that the cop had been unable and unwilling to fill.

Sirens wailed in the night, but the sound was muted through the well-insulated windows of the expensive studio Jaebum shared only with his cats.

  
  
  


Longing was a terrible emotion that consumed Jaebum from the inside, leaving him waiting for  _ something _ that wasn’t happening, the frustrating feeling of a sneeze that just wouldn’t come out.

Was it even a sneeze before it came out of your lungs? Was it even real, a thing that existed, if it was just an inhale, anticipation of something that never occurred?

Jaebum knew this wasn’t healthy, his issues piling up like sediment, but he didn’t know how to stop. He went out, on look for Mark, although he hadn’t been exactly successful even when he had had his unit’s resources on his side for his investigation. Of course, this time he knew exactly who he was looking for. His unit still didn’t. He had been questioned hours upon hours about what had happened that night in New York, about why he had frozen when finally confronting the thief he had chased for years. Jaebum had had to give them something, so he had given them a name, said Mark Tuan was someone he had gotten to know during his time undercover, but whom he had never suspected of being the thief he had been looking for all along. That sentiment had made him crack under pressure.

It wasn’t strictly untrue, but it was far from being the complete truth, because Jaebum hadn’t told anyone about how they had been together for years, about how he knew intimately what sounds Mark made when his nipples were flicked or his cock was sucked down as deep down Jaebum’s throat as it went. Jaebum knew Mark put his cereals in before his milk and preferred the chocolate ones over corn flakes, which were Jaebum’s favorite. He knew what Mark looked like when he laughed, falling off of his chair and wheezing so hard it sounded like he couldn’t breathe. These were the things Jaebum wouldn’t share with anyone else. They were pieces of the person he had loved, still loved, and refused to let go. Things like the last Valentine’s day they had had together, when they had celebrated it the day after, bought heaps of clearance chocolate and binged on romantic movies, because Mark had had to work the night before. Of course, now Jaebum knew it was because Mark had been stealing jewelry at a high-class cocktail party on Valentine’s, but he hadn’t known it then, and it hadn’t mattered to them that it was the day after, because they were together.

They had watched  _ Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  _ Mark had asked him if Jaebum thought they would find each other if their memories of each other were erased. Jaebum had answered honestly that the likelihood was small, but comforted Mark by admitting that he would fall in love with him all over again if they did. Jaebum had known that to be true even then.

At this point Jaebum didn’t think even Michel Gondry could erase his memories of Mark.

  
  
  


Jaebum’s life was a joke. Weekends he spent out on the darker side of city, gathering crumbs of information and trying to build a cover to get more. Weekdays he worked at the office, going through evidence, filing paperwork for those in his team that worked the field, the look in his supervisor’s eyes one of barely concealed disappointment, to have the star of their department fall this far. When Jaebum had been on The Magpie’s case, he had delivered new results every month, closing in closer and closer, every time better at anticipating the diamond thief’s next move. His supervisor had repeatedly told everyone how proud he was of him. There were no such celebrations now, not for Jaebum, and not for others for getting closer to finding Mark Tuan.

One of Jaebum’s former teammates from when he was on the case once left the file open on her computer when she left for her lunch break, a grievous mistake that Jaebum noticed the next time he stood up to fetch coffee, skipping meals like he shouldn’t. There wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation before Jaebum was at her desk, eyes skating over lines of information, looking desperately for something, but what, he didn’t know.

According to the file, it was like the famous diamond thief had dropped off the face of the earth. There had been no notable activity they had been able to tie to him even with all the information about his contacts that Jaebum had gathered in the months before the night with the blue diamond.

Jaebum locked his coworker’s computer and went to get his coffee, the cup left to cool on his desk as he stared at the wall of his cubicle and tried to figure out what The Magpie disappearing meant.

It could mean that Mark was dead, or that he just got more paranoid, more careful after almost getting caught. It could be that he was just laying low for a while, or that the team was simply unable to follow his steps without Jaebum’s mad brilliance to pick them out.

Jaebum’s dreams only got crazier after that. He dreamed of finding Mark again in various ways, of seeing him walked in cuffs to the station, of running into him at a dingy nightclub in Chinatown, of reading in the news that he had been found dead. When he woke up, Jaebum didn’t know what was real and what was a dream anymore, if this was the nightmare and not his dreams, and maybe he would soon wake up, for real. Or maybe it was the other way around – maybe Mark had been a fever dream and Jaebum was only now waking up to a reality where he had never existed in his life. The red hoodie in his closet had lost the scent of citrus, and now that Jaebum thought about it, wasn’t the hoodie his originally, something Mark had stolen from his wardrobe and claimed as his own?

Jaebum wanted to be over this dream. He wanted to be back in Mark’s arms, sirens wailing in the distance, the soft sound of Mark’s breathing in his ear far more important than them.

This wasn’t going to end well. Right now Jaebum would settle just for it to  _ end. _

  
  
  


Jaebum didn’t know what possessed him to walk on Venice Beach at six in the morning. Maybe it was because he knew what date it was, and felt self-destructive enough to indulge himself by submerging himself in the misery of nostalgia, pulling on the red hoodie that had been Mark’s so long that it didn’t matter it had been Jaebum’s in the beginning. In that way, the hoodie and Jaebum’s heart were the same.

It was mostly quiet at the shore, the wind too weak and the waves too small this early in the morning for surfing, the sound of traffic quiet enough to not be heard over the sea. The tide was low, so Jaebum chose to walk close to the water, not looking back to the footsteps his sneakers left in the newest layer of wet sand. The twilight of a new, coming morning was visible over the buildings, but the ocean was still dark, a terrifying and dangerous moving mass of the darkest blues. Jaebum was far from being the only one out here, some early morning joggers and dog walkers around, but they stayed further away from the water, used to the change in tides. Not wanting to walk too far, Jaebum went out to sit on one of the piers, intending to stay to watch the colors of the sunrise with the others who had a similar idea, before heading out for another suffocating day at the office.

Jaebum hadn’t been to the beach in a long time. He had forgotten how chilly it was before sunrise, the water cold year around and the wind piercing. He sneezed into his elbow, deciding he should leave already, before he got a cold on top of everything else.

“Bless you.”

It was an automatic response, given without thought and Jaebum answered with a thanks before the words even registered, the pattern of interaction so ingrained into his brain that he didn’t even need to think about it. Normally he wouldn’t even have thought twice about the whole exchange, except that  _ he knew that voice. _

He turned around and was met with those same dark almond eyes widened in shock that frequented the worst of his dreams, the ones that replayed the night when everything had gone sideways.

Jaebum hadn’t come out here with suicidal intentions, but he must have died. That, or he was having another one of those crazy vivid dreams where he came up with impossible scenarios. Those seemed the only two reasonable explanations for why Jaebum was looking now at the face of his former boyfriend, the wanted diamond thief no one was able to find. He was just sitting there, on the other side of the pier, staring at Jaebum like he had seen a ghost. Mark’s face was pale in the twilight, his cheeks more sunken in than Jaebum remembered, or had imagined, but it was unquestionably Mark.

There were no sirens anywhere to be heard. Instead, the sound of waves and wind, and Mark’s voice, softly questioning, “Jaebum?”, like he didn’t know  _ perfectly well  _ it was him. They were too familiar with each other’s bodies and faces to not be able to tell, even in the dark.

Could this be real? Whether it was or not, Mark’s voice finally saying his name broke Jaebum. They both scrambled to their feet, Jaebum feeling like his would give out any moment. They stared at each other for a bit more, unbelieving of what they were seeing, hesitating before the next move. It was Mark’s, a hand raised to reach out to Jaebum, and it was a pull on Jaebum’s heart he was unable to resist, crashing into Mark with no regard for anything else except that  _ Mark was here,  _ in his arms, for him to hold, and Jaebum smelled the soft scent of citrus over sea salt when his nose brushed on Mark’s now dark hair.

They were beyond apologies, so they didn’t say any, even when they slackened their hold enough to look each other in the face again.

“You disappeared.”

“Can you blame me?” Mark countered, “I panicked. You could have had cops at our apartment, waiting for me to come home. I didn’t want to go to prison, not on top of the heartbreak and knowing I disappointed you.”

“…I don’t,” And it was true. Jaebum had always understood why Mark had left like he had, after Jaebum had caught him in the act. “But I didn’t,” Jaebum defended himself. He hadn’t had anyone investigate into their life, had come alone to his apartment only to find it empty. There had been no trap set for Mark to fall into. Just one heartbroken man waiting for his boyfriend to come home.

“I know that now,” Mark agreed. There was nothing in his stance conveying suspicion or wariness towards Jaebum. He was looking up into Jaebum’s eyes with wonder, completely comfortable standing there in Jaebum’s arms, his fingers buried in the red bulky hoodie Jaebum was wearing. Mark was fearlessly there, even though he knew Jaebum was aware of exactly who he was and what he had done, knew that turning him in would yield Jaebum a hefty bounty that would have him live more than comfortably for years to come.

Not that Jaebum would ever betray the one he loved like that, but that was easy for him to know and more difficult for Mark to trust, but here he was, trusting.

Jaebum’s eyes drank in Mark’s features. He remembered the brown beauty mark on his bottom eyelid, but had that mole over his top lip always been there? Was the mole on his chest still where Jaebum remembered, where he had traced over it in his dreams, replaying memories of nights they had shared before?

“I work in a café now,” Mark blurted suddenly. “It doesn’t really pay that well, so I’m thinking about getting an education, for real.” Previously, Mark had told Jaebum he did various freelance gigs as a photographer. It had been a good cover, one where Jaebum never had to wonder why he had no place to visit Mark while he worked, one where Jaebum never knew where exactly to find Mark if he needed him. A café sounded different. Grounded. Like Jaebum could go out and find Mark any time he wanted, and he would be where he had said he would be.

Jaebum just nodded, something caught in his throat. “I was taken off the case,” He croaked as an admission, because he  _ needed to know– _ “But it seems like The Magpie hasn’t been busy lately.”

At that, Mark gave a soft chuckle, the sound so small, and yet, it was enough to make Jaebum’s chest flutter, a feeling he had forgotten, so used to the pain and numb. “Yeah, I heard The Magpie quit. It made his acquaintances in the criminal world very disappointed, but he just couldn’t do it anymore. He left that life behind him.”

“Is that so,” Jaebum added dryly, just so that he could watch the amusement as it sparkled in Mark’s eyes. They were both older now, but Mark was as beautiful as he had been five years ago, when they had met on this very beach, and Jaebum had never stopped loving him.

“What now?” Jaebum asked after a long moment of silence. The sun had risen, giving Mark’s skin a sheen of healthy gold. Mark’s smile rivaled the stars in their brilliance.

“As far as I’m concerned, we never broke up.”

**Author's Note:**

> …Although Mark says it like that, let there be no doubt that what happened can’t be counted as cheating under the extenuating circumstances.
> 
> This was a wild ride, an idea that possessed me and that wouldn't let me go before it was done. I'm glad I was able to fit this with my GOT7 Fic Bingo as well :')
> 
> I hope you liked it! I experimented with the style a lot to make it kinda choppy, vivid and dream-like, I hope it worked out! Leave kudos and comments to let me know if you liked it ♥


End file.
